BETHESDA, MD, December 20, 2021 — To help raise and spread cybersecurity awareness, SANS Security Awareness by SANS Institute (SANS) created a festive jingle and held three Holiday Jingle Contests through social media.
For three weeks leading up to the holidays, SANS posed a question to the Twitter community with a focus on cybersecurity issues within the home. To participate in the contest, individuals had to reply to the original tweet with an answer to the question, retweet the post, and ensure they were a follower of the SANS account. Each contest produced one random winner who won a voucher for SANS gear.
Here is a recap of the weekly contests and winners:
Contest 1 - November 29:
Question: How do you make cybersecurity a fun topic in your household?
Answer: Winner @enk0de says they print off emails from their junk folder. They then ask their family to identify if it’s fake and point out how they can tell. The 9-year-old and 14-year-old children in the family enjoy reading them with funny voices.
Contest 2 - December 6:
Question: What’s the most helpful way to share cybersecurity information with friends and family?
Answer: Winner @chrismadge_ says to share public war stories and help friends and family not only see the bait but also the hook.
Contest 3 - December 13:
Question: What’s the best and most simple advice you’ve given about staying safe online?
Answer: Winner @mutidzwi encourages their family to not auto-save passwords on the web.
This contest served as a reminder for everyone to be mindful of cybersecurity in their homes. This past October, for Cybersecurity Awareness Month, SANS introduced a campaign to #SecureTheFamily, as a way to encourage everyone to spread security awareness programs beyond the boundaries of the office and protect their families and friends online at home.
This holiday season, SANS experts provided easy-to-download reference checklists that offer practical ways household family members can follow to stay safe online:
- Shop Securely Online: Finding good deals online without becoming a victim of a cyberattack.
- Protect New Devices: Setting up new IoT devices safely and securely for you and your loved ones.
- Safe Travels: Traveling from point A to point B (and beyond!) while keeping devices and personal information safe and secure.
About SANS Institute
The SANS Institute was established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. Today, SANS is the most trusted and, by far, the largest provider of cybersecurity training and certification to professionals in government and commercial institutions worldwide. Renowned SANS instructors teach more than 60 courses at in-person and virtual cybersecurity events and on demand. GIAC, an affiliate of the SANS Institute, validates practitioner skills through more than 35 hands-on, technical certifications in cybersecurity. The SANS Technology Institute, a regionally accredited independent subsidiary, offers master’s and bachelor’s degrees, graduate certificates, and an undergraduate certificate in cybersecurity. SANS Security Awareness, a division of SANS, provides organizations with a complete and comprehensive security awareness solution, enabling them to manage their “human” cybersecurity risk easily and effectively. SANS also delivers a wide variety of free resources to the InfoSec community including consensus projects, research reports, webcasts, podcasts, and newsletters; it also operates the Internet's early warning system–the Internet Storm Center. At the heart of SANS are the many security practitioners, representing varied global organizations from corporations to universities, working together to support and educate the global information security community. www.sans.org